


Simple, Not Easy

by starredthought



Category: James Bond (Craig movies)
Genre: Aftermath of Violence, Bodyguard, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-02
Updated: 2021-03-13
Packaged: 2021-03-15 15:33:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 7,481
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29810547
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starredthought/pseuds/starredthought
Summary: Over his nearly thirty-year career, James had experienced his fair share of hostage extractions, but this one didn't feel right in his gut. He'd hardly gotten any information on who they were even looking for, only that he would "know him when he saw him."
Relationships: James Bond/Q
Comments: 24
Kudos: 98





	1. Chapter 1

Over his nearly thirty-year career, James had experienced his fair share of hostage extractions, but this one didn't feel right in his gut. He'd hardly gotten any information on who they were even looking for, only that he would "know him when he saw him."

His tactical gear was already soaking up spattered blood and sweat as he ran down a stretch of hallway to reach the door that R instructed him toward, not knowing how on earth he pinpointed a single room within an entire compound that had no schematics to speak of. It was pitch black as he shut the door hastily behind him, taking a moment to catch his breath from the adrenaline coursing through every vein in his body. _"Do you see anyone?"_ R's voice questioned in his ear through his panting. James turned, breath turning into vapor before his eyes, and shined his flashlight around every corner of the room.

"Room is...clear." It didn't look like it had always been. The room smelled like unwashed bodies and human waste. A blanket looking stained with blood and filled with tears from insect damage lay in a pile on a thin, disgustingly messy mattress in the corner. As he stepped into the middle of the space, something cracked under his foot. He lifted his shoe and discovered a pair of glasses that already looked damaged beyond what James had done. "It looks like someone was here." He looked up, finding no windows anywhere within the cramped closet space. Still listening for footsteps or voices on the opposite side of the door, he started to pace around the perimeter, looking for a potential means of escape in the seams of the walls. "But I'm not sure they're still--"

His heart leaped into his throat, stopping his words as he felt something fall to the top of his shoe. An impossibly pale hand had fallen out from the pile of blanket, and for a moment, James thought he'd disrupted a corpse until it squeezed with the tiniest amount of effort. _"What's the matter, 007?"_

"I may have found someone." He knelt down in a posture that would allow him to spring back if needed as he slowly peeled away the stiff fabric from the pile.

_"Alive?"_ The flashlight blinded James as it bounced off the figure's paper-white back, covered in wounds that anyone could recognize as flogging injuries. Still not seeing the face, all James could make out was a mess of greasy black hair, matted down with fluids James couldn't identify quite yet.

"Breathing," James clarified. The man trembled as James took the blanket away and exposed his half-naked body to the frigid air. "It's alright, we're going to get you out of here," he reassured without feeling as if it were part of a script. A voice quieter than a mouse in a church responded as James wrapped a traveling blanket from one of his pockets around him. "Sorry?"

Lifting his head, and shaking all the while, a pair of swollen eyes rimmed with black and blue found James's voice in the glow of his flashlight. His face was covered with angry wounds and his cheeks sunk to contrast the swelling.

He cleared his throat, sounding painfully jagged and unsettlingly familiar, and James felt like his soul left his body as the realization sunk in. The hair, the glasses, the voice...

"I said...what took you...so long?"


	2. Chapter 2

Even without his glasses, the rhythmic beeping and white backdrop gave away where Q woke up. "Hospital." He whispered to himself, closing his eyes once more as he took stock of his limbs, all aching in protest as he shifted on the plastic mattress covered in a well-worn sheet. He stretched his hearing as far as he could, reaching out for familiar voices, or even the accents he knew so well, but everything sounded as if he were underwater. _Please be England...Please be England_.

"It is."

Q's eyes flew open, and his neck cranked toward the voice only to greet Q with a bundle of throbbing pain that shot down his spine like a bullet. The figure was sat far enough away to be blurry, but he could make out the shapes of his suited torso and closely cropped blonde hair to match the gravelly voice. "Double-O Seven?" Q croaked. "What are you doing here?"

The agent moved his chair closer to the bed, allowing Q to lie back into a position that his body seemed to agree with. "Did you think I would extract you and then just dump you on the medical staff? I'm not completely devoid of decorum." He reached into the inner pocket of his jacket and withdrew something Q couldn't make out. "I was also entrusted with...these." Once in his palm, Q recognized them immediately as his emergency pair of wire framed glasses, completely absent of fashion and hardly holding function as far as the prescription was concerned, but he was able to make out the smaller shapes of James eyes and the colors of the numbers on his monitor.

"What am I being treated for?" he inquired. His joints felt as if they'd been screwed on too tightly and now resisted moving as they should, and he felt that he could sleep for days if only his head would stop pounding with every beat of his heart.

"Dehydration mostly, and addressing your more superficial injuries. I'm surprised that's all your in for." Q scoffed and turned his head slowly away from James, causing his neck to pop painfully. The wounds all over his body would heal, and the drip would bring his body back to life in a matter of hours, sure. But James had to know enough about the nature of torture to understand that it wasn't just his body that his captors had been trying to break.

"I don't want...I can't go back to my flat." The rise in emotion would have normally brought tears to his eyes, but after the last couple of weeks, there were none left. All of them were back in a series of windowless rooms soaked into blindfolds and his cardigan and mixed with his sweat and blood.

"You won't be alone. Six anticipated that much." Q's head moved faster than the realization could sink in, and with a wince, he squinted at Bond, who finished his statement. "They've arranged for me to stay with you for the time being."

"Stay with m—you're not serious." Q's eyes flickered around the room, sorting through the implications of sharing a space with not just anyone, but with the double-O that drove him up every wall of MI-6. He hadn't had a roommate since he'd graduated from university, and he hadn't been thrilled about that arrangement at the time, let alone after enjoying a decade of solitary living.

"You can take it up with M, for putting me on light duty."

Another scoff from the Quartermaster. "So you, for lack of a better word, rescue a vulnerable asset to MI-6 and your reward is a temporary suspension from field work, the only thing that seems to keep your blood pumping apart from—"

"Seems so," James interrupted.

"Well then, apologies for being so helpless."

"Apology accepted." The agent stood up from his chair and set it back on the periphery of the room. "I'll return for your discharge."

"Hurry back," Q retorted quietly, turning his head away from the door until he found the most comfortable physical position to occupy while he enjoyed his final day of solitude.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for joining me on another journey with these two! Chapter will start to get longer after this :)


	3. Chapter 3

The normalcy of his flat felt wrong, like a family member's home right after they had died. Everything was there physically, but something else intangible had shifted and left an eeriness within the space. It gave Q a pause as he entered, taking in the dishes in the sink, shoes left by the door, a spread of paperwork and mail spread out over his dining table.

James strode in as if he owned the place, entirely too comfortable in Q's opinion, for someone who had never been there before. "Please, make yourself at home." There was a dash of sarcasm in his voice, still in half a mind of loathing the arrangement, but he couldn't have peace of mind while being alone. It just wouldn't happen. In fact, he wasn't sure if he would ever find peace again.

"I'm sorry, I don't have a guest room, but the sofa is comfortable." He picked off a disposed of cardigan from the back of the couch and started to tidy up the coffee table. Every movement had to be approached an amount of intention of a toddler learning their balance, and Q could feel his muscles grow sore with even the thought of engaging them.

James set down two suitcases next to the wall. "I've had worse arrangements." He sauntered around the space, taking in the details as if he were looking to buy a new flat. "I don't know what I expected from your living quarters, but it wasn't this."

"Sorry to disappoint." He turned and limped toward the bathroom in haste, and as he shut the door behind him, he kept his weight against it for just a handful of moments of stability and a feeling of voluntary solitude, though he could still hear James through the wood. None of it felt real at all. He hadn't spent over a week at the hands of a small but determined terrorist cell. There wasn't an agent assigned to sleep in his home and watch over him at all moments.

It took only one glance at the mirror to bring reality crashing down around him. He hadn't seen himself since the day he was taken, and he felt as different on the outside as he did on the inside. He'd already noticed how his clothes didn't quite fill out the way they had before, everything hurt to move, and he felt bandages on his face, but nothing in his imagination could prepare him for the sight that came with the sensations.

His eyes, while now able to be opened, were still at the center of a splatter of blue, purple, yellow, and green bruises that stretched beyond the frames of his spectacles. Two lacerations stretched from his sunken cheek to his chin, bandaged with tiny strips of adhesive to encourage healing and drainage until they would suture them closed. Between the bruises, bandages, and redness of the borders of his wounds, very little of his natural skin color showed through from his collar up.

And that was only just his face! As he thought of how his body must look beneath his clothes, every instance of abuse came back with a vengeance before his eyes, forcing his body to the ground with a thud with the sheer weight of his circumstances.

He couldn't pinpoint the emotions within him enough to figure out how to experience them. They simply existed in an indistinguishable flurry within his shattered psyche that spiked his heart rate and shook his bones at their marrow until Bond pushed the door open and knelt down to intercept Q's one-hundred-yard stare.

At first, the words, like everything else, failed to materialize within the mental shock, and the two men sat in a necessary silence as Q painfully pulled himself back just enough into his new reality to ask "what happens now?"

James kept a few inches of distance between them on the ground as he leaned back against the opposite wall. "You take time to heal." 

A nervous laugh escaped Q's split lip. "Heal? Bond I'm..." He choked on the word in his throat, unable to speak it into reality.

"You take time to heal," James repeated with emphasis. "It's simple. I didn't say it would be easy." Q's head fell between his knees, feeling all the more heavy as he carried more than ever before. He listened only to the sound of his breathing, and while it ached with every inhale, it was a sign that he was still alive, and that he had survived. He'd done it once, he could do it aga—

James's hand came to just brush Q's leg, and his body reacted by violently jumping away as if struck by lightning. Eyes wide and feral, he backed himself into the nearest corner, staring at James with a fear that had now become so familiar, but so deeply uncomfortable. In his own home. With a man he trusted, albeit against his better judgment. What else would he perceive as a threat from here on out?

"I'm sorry," the agent apologized hastily. "I'm sorry, I won't do that again." Q couldn't move, frozen in a terror he understood, but couldn't disengage. "Why don't you take a shower and try to sleep? That usually helps me get the metaphorical blood off my hands." James reached out his own hand to help Q off the floor, and it took a handful of moments for him to take the offer, joints popping all the while. Wordlessly, James turned and left, leaving Q the opportunity to shut the door behind him himself, in a quiet act of mercy.


	4. Chapter 4

The softness and painfully familiarity of his bed lured him toward sleep like a siren, but he found himself unconsciously pulling against its song. He'd been wishing for nothing more than this moment for weeks, and yet it didn't bring the sweetness and security he once took for granted. Instead, he felt pins and needles across his cheeks as his eyes dampened and spilled over in a silent, private display of melancholy.

Just sleep. You're safe here. Bond is down the hall.

But his eyes darted toward the all too breakable windows, filled with a darkness that he could no longer trust to be empty.

His heart pulled him away from the sirens' wail, each pounding beat forcing him upright until his head slumped over his lap, his hair hid the world from him and each ragged inhale echoed as if he were in a cave. His palm found his forehead damp with cold beads of sweat. The clock read 12:06.

So he had fallen asleep, or at least into some form of it. How could he not? His body was still exhausted and refueling after a time of neglect and abuse. But he felt just as tired as before he changed into his pajamas, if not more so.

Q reached for his glasses, threw back his covers, wrapped a well-worn robe around his pajamas, and headed out the door, where a single light on downstairs shot his heart into a momentary frenzy until he realized the source. However, that knowledge did little to put him at ease. Instead, he felt embarrassed, as if he were a grown adult approaching his parents' bedroom to confront the monster under his bed.

James didn't look at him straight away, keeping his attention on his novel even as he spoke. "Trouble sleeping?"

"I just need some tea and I'll be fine." A rumble from James further stoked the fire in him as he rummaged through his collections of tea bags for a calming lavender and chamomile blend.

"The kettle is warm." Q's gaze fell to the electric kettle, gingerly reaching out to touch the edge to feel a comfortable warmness on his fingers. A question bounced around in his mind, but he couldn't bring himself to ask. Instead, he chose another.

"Why are you still awake?" He poured over the tea bag before adding a dollop of honey.

"I figured you would be waking up at some point." Dammit, well there was the answer to the other question.

"You're not my keeper," he mumbled onto the lip of his mug.

"No, but you've had enough sleepless nights because of my antics. Seemed only fair to return the favor." The sound of his single scoffing chuckle was swallowed by the tea. James marked his place and set his book aside, only then directing his full attention to Q. "I fear you'll need more than tea to get good sleep for a while."

"Oh yes, I forgot my horse tranquilizer." Q half rose from his chair and lowered himself back down before his joints shouted at him. "Oh bollocks, just realized I meant to grab some of M&S before I was captured, tortured, and exploited. What rotten luck."

"They certainly didn't beat the cheekiness out of you," he retorted.

"Quite the opposite." If he had only kept his mouth shut, maybe then he wouldn't ache down to his organs and his bones wouldn't be trembling constantly within him. "But I don't have anything 'more than tea', Bond. I don't even have allergy medication to make me drowsy."

"Then I suggest you find some useful employment, and we'll fill your pain prescription in the morning." Q side-eyed the man whose ease only infuriated him as he settled further into an armchair he didn't own with a cup of tea that wasn't his, and a book he borrowed from Q's bookshelf.

"I never took you for a reader."

James flipped the book over and back, at if surprised that he was holding it. "I do have hobbies that don't come into my line of work terribly often." Q bit his lip. No good would come from being overly abrasive toward this man assigned to keep him safe. "You have quite the collection."

"My parents encouraged reading." He had few other hobbies that didn't involve some sort of book. He'd embodied the bookworm stereotype his entire academic career, preferring time alone within pages compared to that with the company of others, save for a special few. "And it carried into adulthood."

James set down the book and watched Q as he drank another sip of tea. "Do you have a favorite?" He took care not to show how he rolled his eyes at the question. How could he chose when each did something different for him? Some for enjoyment, others for growth, some for information.

"No, no I don't. I have some I go back to more frequently, but not a favorite book. Nor genre. I just...enjoy books." He reached over and picked up the volume from the table in front of him. "I bought this because Eve liked the cover."

"That was a good enough reason?" With a shrug and a nod, Q set it back down and stared into the bottom of his mug, nothing but a wet dusting of leaves to show for the tea that had disappeared.

"Good a reason as any." A yawn pushed its way up through Q's chest until it escaped through his mouth with an audible presence. "Something something, book by its cover."

"I prefer wine by its label." Q's gesture as he recovered from his yawn signified that the two were indeed similar.

"Wine would help me sleep," he mused quietly, only to receive an incredulous scoff from James as he opened his volume once more.

"Now that is a slippery slope," James scolded as he peered down at the pages.

"Once won't hurt."

"Quite slippery." Q huffed at James's sense and stole the volume from James's sturdy hands, though he didn't seem to be phased by the action, hands as frozen as his own expression in time at Q's tantrum. "I'm not going to let you go down that path. It's not a pretty one."

"I'd argue that I'm already on an undesirable path."

"No, you took an unsavory detour." James reached over and took the book back from Q's hands. "You're back on the same path you were before, and I'm meant to keep you from falling off...apparently."

"I thought a security detail was to prevent me from getting shot."

James's opened his mouth to speak, only to shut his mouth and turn the page of the book on his lap. "Yes, also that."

He didn't speak again. Q just stared at James looking so settled, but feeling that there was some tension in the creases of his brow. With a defeated, exhausted sigh, Q pushed himself up with care and hobbled back to the kitchen, bracing himself against any surface he could get his hand on until he reached the sink to wash out his mug and saucer. With the same physical guarding, he passed James in silence and ascended the staircase, pausing halfway as his chest spasmed in pain and a fit of breathlessness took over. He turned and met James's eyes, which were filled with something Q hadn't seen before, but neither of them said a word about it.


	5. Chapter 5

"Q, it's half eleven, time to get up."

Little did he know that Q had been wide awake for hours by the time he opened his door, paralyzed by an agony he'd forgotten upon his return to "real life."

"I can't," he admitted quietly, even his jaw aching as he spoke the two short syllables, waking up the bruises on his cheeks that held the tears of frustration at his situation. James crossed the threshold and came to stand next to Q's bed, his presence not calming him at all as he seemed to loom over his helpless form.

"What do you mean, you can't?" Even though his immobility, James's tone, as innocuous as he may have intended it, caused his body to tremble in a fear that now felt ingrained within his genetic code.

"I mean, I can't move. It hurts to even think about it." James held out the new glasses for him to take, but Q couldn't will himself to fight through the tearing sensation of his shoulders to reach up to take them and place them on his face. When James realized that he wouldn't do it himself, he placed the spectacles delicately upon his nose, and Q felt a tear run down his cheek in absolute shame.

"Mornings are always the hardest," James reassured, hands firmly in the pockets of his track pants.

"I'm not a morning person in the best of times..." James chuckled, and on a normal day Q may have managed a smile at the ability to make the stoic agent laugh, but all he could do in the moment was try to keep any more tears from escaping, or at least keep Bond from seeing them. He turned his head slowly away, feeling that James could hear it creaking like an old door as he did so "I had no idea how much the medications were doing."

"Well, Moneypenny filled your prescriptions, but you'll need to get out of bed to take them" His head whipped back around, and a moan gave sound to the pounding that appeared at the front of his head.

"You're an ass." He squinted his eyes shut tight, unsuccessfully trying to stop the throbbing.

"Never claimed I wasn't. Now get up. Can't take them on an empty stomach." James threw back his blankets which felt like a weight off Q's body, though he felt immensely exposed and exceedingly helpless. His legs felt like they were lead weights, connected to rubber band muscles as he tried to swing them over the edge of the bed. He never knew how much of his body that he used to do simple tasks until it was arguing with him with angry, hot shouting that drowned out any conscious thought.

_Mercy...mercy..._

Every time his core engaged he felt as if the wind had been knocked out of him, just as it had been in the windowless room where he spent nearly two weeks. It magnified the headache and filled his empty belly with nausea, pulling him away from the safety of his bed and planting him back on a concrete floor far from home. Lie back and think of England had never felt more fitting than it had as he accepted blow after blow, from a fist, a boot, a cat of nine tails, or a blade. Every time flesh was ripped from his bones, or a bruise blossomed on his skin, a piece of him felt stolen away, evaporated into the air with his cries of distress that he tried so aggressively to stifle.

_Mercy...mercy..._

Now he lay in a broken vessel of a body, smothered in a pain that prevailed over distance and time

_Mercy......mercy......_

"Q...Q..." James sounded miles away, as if in a dream. "Q, you're alright." He opened his eyes, not realizing that they had been clamped closed, and found himself staring at the floor, forehead pressed against James's chest as he sat on the edge of the bed, chest heaving and face swollen with steadily falling tears.

"Sorry...sorry..." The apologies came out like prayers begging for forgiveness, which James vehemently protested as he lightly laid his broad hands on Q's back, causing the man to contract into himself, if only a moment. Did James know that his hands were just a t-shirt away from a web of scarring wounds? He must have; his grip was so gentle like Q was something fragile, something precious. These hands were capable of so much damage, he'd seen it first-hand dozens of times. He had no idea that there was another end of the spectrum, that felt warm and secure and steady. He regained control of his facilities and his breathing, focusing as much as he could on the feeling of each knuckle against his shoulder blades. The more he did, the more he was able to distance himself from the white-hot pain of existing in that moment. 

"I need to get up, double-O seven..." He could hardly raise his voice above a whisper, feeling lulled back into a state of sleepiness.

"Do you want me to help you?" James asked, not moving from his embracing posture.

"I'm...I'm not sure." It was Q that moved first, shifting in minuscule ways as if calibrating his body to stand over his two feet, noticing in those moments that he would need to pull himself up if he had any hope of being upright. "Yes...but, I just need something to hold on to." As James removed his hands from Q's back and stood back to his full height, he instantly felt heavier, as if his body sighed into his mattress.

"Just tell me what you need." Q nodded and noted the tightness in his shoulders, recalling with a shiver up his spine what put it there

"I can't move my arms above my elbow at present." As he explained, he raised his eyes and saw that it was James's waist that sat at the level he could reach. James did the same inspection and said nothing to protest. "So I apologize."

He reached out to grip James's waist, which felt as study as a tree rooted deep in the earth. His muscles felt so strong already, and he felt them tense and strengthen further when he sensed Q needed additional stability. James's body had undergone just as much abuse over his career as he had experienced in the last weeks, and here he stood, firm as an oak. It gave Q hope that he would one day be the same, and he would heal to be stronger than before. 

His quads screamed at him as he pulled himself up, hamstrings threatening to snap under tension, but Q pushed through the pain, knowing that relief was on the other side. He held his breath, and using every modicum of strength in his arms, pulled himself up to stand inches away from Bond's stern face, creased with age and flushed across the cheeks. "Thank you. Sorry again."

"It's not a problem. I'll go get breakfast started. Can you manage the stairs?" He didn't give Q room to protest against his cooking, sly bastard. With a faint whisper of a smile, Q nodded softly.

"Slowly, but I believe I'll be fine." It was only then that Q realized that his hands were still resting on James's waist and forearm, and he pulled them away as if shocked. Another apology under his breath, which James didn't even acknowledge.

"Take your time. Shout if you need anything." He left the room in haste, leaving Q alone with his hands tingling and warm.


	6. Chapter 6

It took three nights before it happened.

They'd spent the evening watching comedy trivia programmes (a guilty pleasure of Q's, James had discovered), followed by Q catching up on some emails while James worked out just beyond the living room. He found himself sneaking glances at the agent as he breathed through push-ups and crunches and planks, face full of concentration. He made it look so easy, and Q couldn't help but stare. He excused himself to shower after working up a sweat, and the images imprinted themselves on Q's brain in a way he didn't expect.

Around eleven, Q went up for bed after a cup of lavender tea, and after about half an hour, James followed suit, settling into the couch with a quilt and all but one light off. The sound of the odd car outside and the ticking of a clock hypnotized him into deep sleepiness that embraced him warmly.

Until he woke up to shouting from upstairs.

He was up like a shot, instinctively reaching at his hip for a gun that wasn't there. Finding it on the side table, he took the steps two at a time, bursting into Q's room with his pistol drawn. His eyes scanned the room in a single moment, only seeing Q doubled over in bed gasping for breath with one hand on his chest and the other covering his eyes. "What's happened?" James asked, tone full of business. Q sounded as if he tried to control his breathing and speak, but all he could do was shake his head. James set his pistol down on the dresser and approached the bed, taking a seat at Q's feet. "Q, you're safe. Take a moment to breathe." His breaths were trembling a filled with a sort of terror he never thought he'd see in the cool and collected Quartermaster, and it gave him a wrenching feeling deep in his chest. He was a civilian. MI-6 was never supposed to impact him this way. Yet here he sat, bathed in a cold sweat and unable to speak.

"Q, I'm going to put my hands on your shoulders, okay?" A nod came through the inhales, and James pressed down, attempting to ground him. After another half dozen breaths, Q swallowed and groaned, never lifting his eyes to James’s, only muttering apologies that James deflected away. "What happened?" he prompted again.

Q didn't answer right away. He had to further reign himself in if he wanted to avoid decompensating again. "It feels childish...it was a nightmare. I've had them every night, just about. But this one...I couldn't wake up. And then when I did, I couldn't move." James felt his whole body tremble beneath his hands as he continued. "It was like they followed me. They were at the side of the bed, staring at me. And all I could do was look back until you came in, and they disappeared."

"Who is 'they'?"

"The two men tasked with...breaking me. I fear...I fear they succeeded." His shaking ceased as if at that moment he'd come to peace with his circumstances, but James felt that he was simply falling into a state of shock.

"Bones need to be reset before they can heal, just like you." He didn't respond to that, but James could feel his body swaying and threatening to go limp. "You're not fainting on me. You'll have to tell me something else you need."

Q finally turned his gaze upward. "I'm so tired...I just want to sleep in peace..."

In that single moment of time, James saw a raw innocence, like a child gone without their nap. It was desperate, helpless, pained to a level most couldn't understand, but he saw himself, twelve years old, freshly orphaned, and confused. What did he need then?

"I'll be back." He didn't like leaving Q alone in the dark again, but after grabbing his quilt off the couch, he returned to his bedroom in less than a minute. "Move over."

"What are you—?" Despite his confusion, he obliged, and James made himself on top of the comforter effectively putting a soft barrier between he and the younger man.

"Is this okay with you?" Even as he laid down and made himself comfortable, Q was still sat up, looking entirely confused at the situation.

"I...I...yes, I think?"

"I need certainty."

"Yes, yes this is okay with me." James tucked in without a word, unlike Q who continued to sit up in bewilderment and disbelief. All he could think of were the images of James working out just hours before, with those strong and sturdy arms that grounded him down and made him feel strangely safe among the chaos of his mind.

Q let out a sigh that expanded his chest to it's limits as he laid back under the blankets. There was no way he was going to sleep now. Not with the reluctant warmth of James radiating outward. Not with the desire to grab his arms and wrap them around him for protection. Not with their faces inches apart, only separated by a duvet! Where ever these thoughts had been borne, at least they were distracting him from what woke him up in the first place. Which made him think.

"I'm going back to the office. I'm calling Eve in the morning," he mused in a soft voice directed toward the ceiling.

"Whatever you find appropriate." James's voice reflected tiredness of being awoken in the middle of the night. "It is probably good to get you occupied again."

"My thoughts exactly." He stared at the ceiling in silence for a matter of minutes, until James's breathing evened out and he felt that he'd fallen asleep. Only then did he look in his direction, and barely above a breath, whispered "Good night...James."

* * *

Q wasn't a morning person, as he said, so when James awoke at sunrise, he sorted out the unfamiliar surroundings and then carefully crawled out of bed as to not disturb the quartermaster. As he walked by, he caught sight of his face, and paused without thought to take in the placid features of Q's face, further healed from the day before, all muscles relaxed and slacken with restfulness. He wanted to reach out and touch it, allured like a refreshingly cool, still lake, but he kept his hands at his side and pushed down the thought. But the memory of being so close to him the entire night fought against his efforts, and he forced himself downstairs to start breakfast in order to distract himself from the visions that danced in his head. He was the last thing that Q needed in his life right now, or at all. After all, he attracted danger like moths to his flame, and Q needed peace.

He hardly knew the meaning of the word, only that he saw it on Q's face as he left the room.

He couldn't disturb it.

* * *

Q woke up to the sound of sizzling and the sound of cooked ham.

His eyelids reluctantly faced the light of day, and while his body held its now usually morning aches, he felt as rested as ever since coming home. Only after that realization did his eyes fall to the other half of the bed, empty but made. _Did that really happen?_

After falling asleep again, Q had dreams that embarrassed him to even think about. Those arms...what his chest might look like when he took off his sweaty gym shirt...how his lips might feel on his—

Q threw off his sheets and planted his feet firmly on the floor to bring him back to reality—the reality where James was downstairs, making them breakfast, for the third day straight. He wrapped his dressing gown around him and followed the sounds and smells, taking in the sight of an agent in domesticity in his kitchen.

James turned on hearing him enter the kitchen. "Morning," he greeted with a smudge of warmth and welcoming. "You're looking well."

"Feeling so...thanks to you. I'm not sure what it was, but it worked." He wrapped his arms tightly around himself, embarrassed to even admit that sleeping next to James seemed to do him good.

"Well then, have I graduated from the couch?" A smile tugged at Q's lips for the first time in weeks, and he felt his face grow warm in an instant.

"It seems you have."


	7. Chapter 7

Q was in two minds about returning to work. On one hand, he craved mental stimulation and the image of normalcy. On the other hand, his face was still a splash of greens and yellows and while the lacerations were sutured shut, they still a focal point on his face. He didn't want the stares, the pity.

"You're the Quartermaster of MI-6. You're going to be stared at," James said pointedly over morning tea. He knew Q resisted even leaving the flat in fear of giving off the wrong impression. The black eyes, never straying more than an arm's length from James...it added up to the wrong picture to the civilian set. "Everyone knows what you've been through, at least the general details. It's not pity they'll be feeling, but awe." Q stared through the top of his glasses at James’s nonchalance as he took another sip of tea, and he took a shot with his next question.

"Is that what you feel then?" It was James’s turn to be a bit blindsided, his sip too long and the silence after too drawn out.

"All I'm going to say is that if the Quartermaster was chosen by engineering skill alone, anyone in that room could do the job. But it's more than that." Q, accepting that was as close to a compliment as he was going to get out of James, smirked amusingly into his tea.

* * *

He'd called Eve after breakfast to let her know that he would be returning to the office the next day. He hadn't expected her to show up the next morning with a case of makeup in her hands. In less than thirty minutes, she'd managed to at least minimize the impact of the colors on his face, which lifted a weight he'd carried throughout the night. "You're worth your weight in gold, Eve." He turned his head back and forth slowly in his bathroom mirror, feeling lighter, feeling whole as he saw a shadow of the man he had been before.

"I covered many a love-bite for girls in school," she explained with a proud smile. "Sorry I couldn't do anything about your sutures."

"Short of removing them, I'm not sure what you could do." The makeup had covered the threads enough to make them less glaring, but he would just need to accept their presence. "Regardless, I feel much more equipped to handle the day. I'm in your debt."

"Let's not be dramatic. It's the least I can do. It's just nice to see you." The smile on her face and in her eyes was contagious, and Q couldn't help but wrap her in a comfortable hug. At least it was until her arms closed around his and he couldn't help but flinch.

"Sorry...sorry um—"

"You're okay. I understand." She packed up the assortment of creams, concealers, sponges, and brushes as Q did up his top buttons and knotted his tie, fumbling over some of the movements to his surprise. Eve stepped in and finished the job, perfecting the Windsor and helping him into his jacket to not strain his still sore shoulders. "You can buy my lunch later as payment."

"I'll buy you lunch for a week, given what you've done."

"Lunch and company, Q. You're not rotting in your office." Q smiled and gave her a peck on her cheek as a compromise for another hug.

"England would fall without you, Miss Moneypenny."

* * *

Q hated being driven. It made him feel too posh for his boots. He'd rather ride his bike, or take the Tube. But that was how he came to be here in the first place. He wouldn't be traveling alone for a good while.

They'd authorized a company car for James while on his assignment. Tinted black windows, bulletproof, tracked location, the whole bit. That sort of vehicle was saved for the highest of executives, the suits as Q called them. Certainly not for the gangly, thirty-something tech nerd that Q saw himself as. James dropped him off at the entrance, and once inside tge security of Six, he drove off and put more distance between them than there had been in nearly a week. It almost felt like Q had forgotten his wallet at home.

Q branch was exactly how he'd left it, bustling with activity. New shipments of parts were coming in. Old equipment needed repairs. Double-Os needed their kits equipped. There was hardly any time to say "Welcome back, sir," let alone stop and give him a proper look. Q passed through the room in general obscurity, unlocking his office with hardly a bother.

The door shut behind him, and the soundproofing smothered the room into a sniffling silence.

Alone. Nothing but the sound of his own breathing. Had his office always been this unbearably quiet, or did it just not bother him until an empty, soundless room had become an environment of suffering?

He flew to his computer, clicking at quickly as he could to start some music playing before he went completely mad. His hands trembled on the surface of his desk, and his toes in his shoes as he pleaded with the machine to move faster than was even possible. He fought against the eerieness that he'd felt on his return to his flat, that out-of-place dread that sat in the piles of untouched documents, half-finished engineering experiments, and mugs of tea that sat empty but stained with the black tea he'd drunk to keep himself awake three weeks prior before leaving Six after midnight.

He struggled to make a mental list of everything he needed to do, so he found an old receipt and started writing down every task he could think of, from lunch with Eve to his monthly update of the firewalls and his usual inventory.

He'd get out of his head, in every way, if it was the death of him.

* * *

James needed to get out of his head, so he went for a run. 

The feeling of the fresh air on his face even laced with the usually London drizzle, seemed to reawaken his spirit after spending the better part of the last week indoors. He couldn't blame Q; he understood all of his reasons for staying inside, but James would be lying if he said he didn't feel like a dog that had gone without a good walk. As soon as his feet hit the pavement at a brisk pace, the energy buzzing within him found its flow.

Part of the energy came from a place of familiarity, just not in this sense.

Sleeping next to Q for the last two nights had been beneficial for the quartermaster's rest. He'd seen it in the brightness of his eyes and the way that his wounds seemed to heal faster than they had been. He seemed to smile more and was more engaged in the world around him, and it all made James feel the same. It was like visiting someplace new, full of awe and excitement as he watched Q blossom before his eyes again. He thought he'd known him, but he couldn't have been more wrong.

His rising heart rate came from more than his speed.

_The moth and the flame_

He was only supposed to protect him, should he be targeted again. No more, no less. The period of time right after the escape was a victim's most dangerous window, and he'd die before he let Q go back to the sect that made him feel like a broken man. He was stronger than he realized, but everyone had their limits, and Q was becoming actively acquainted with his own.

_The moth and the flame._

Anything more would add gasoline to a relationship that couldn't exist. They needed to trust each other on a level that involved a certain amount of distance, being impartial to each other. Every time James was deployed, there was a fair chance of him coming back in a body bag, and he couldn't be the reason that Q shattered again. Everything he did would be for Q. Not for him. Nothing flammable.

_The moth and the flame._

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for all the kudos and lovely comments! Certainly helps me keep going at the rate I'm working. I'm so glad you're enjoying this journey!


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